Apple geek seeks true love, with iPod

I don't know about everything in this article, being an Apple fanatic myself...

Examples of fanatics are everywhere. They name their iPods, fill blogs with testimonials about making "the switch" and testify that their laptops have gotten them dates, and better grades.

My iPod's name happens to be Bobby's iPod...

Of course my iBook's name is Bobby's iBook...

I have an Apple AirPort Base Station (which actually is an 802.11b wireless hub) named Bobby's Airport Basestation...
And my wireless network is named Bobby's Wireless Network...

But this doesn't only hold specifically for my Apple products...

My new Motorola v600 cellphone is named Bobby's v600...

And my HS810 bluetooth headset to go with it is named Bobby's HS810...

There's a bit of a pattern here, I'm sure you can see...
I've been giving my personal devices this pattern of names for some time...

Oh, and for the record, by naming I'm of course referring to the fact that each of these devices has the ability to give it an identifiable Id...


I've no switch testimony to give, as I've been a Mac user since I got my first computer at age 16...

And, for the record, I currently am employed writing web applications using Visual Studio for ASP .net, on PCs... Prior to this I worked for the company providing over the phone tech support for Windows NT & Windows 2000 systems, for over 4 years... I am very familiar with Windows & the PC side of things basically...
I believe I easily know more about Windows than the average Windows user... My mother & step-father are both Windows users, and I find myself regularly trying to fix problems with their computers... Of course there are many users of Windows out there who easily know more than I do, so I'm not claiming to be a genius...
I've been accused in the past of not being familiar enough about Windows to be able to make a logical judgment call as to which is better... As of now I've pretty much overcome that lack of experience, and then some...

INSULT

Ahem...

President Bush proclaimed his outrage, four federal immigration officials were reassigned, and Washington vowed that such embarrassing bureaucratic snafus would never happen again. I'm sorry to report that it has, in fact, happened again.

On Jan. 15, immigration officials sent a notice to Eugueni Kniazev of Brooklyn. The letter informs Kniazev, a Siberian immigrant, that he is now "deemed to be a lawful permanent resident of the United States." The notice directs Kniazev to obtain a new alien registration receipt card (a "green card"), and instructs him to appear at the immigration office at 26 Federal Plaza with his passport and three recent photos.

The letter warns Kniazev not to travel outside the United States without approval.

But Eugueni Kniazev won't be appearing at Federal Plaza. He won't be traveling anywhere. Kniazev, 47, was an employee of Windows on the World on the 107th floor of the North Tower. He was murdered in the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.

Ummm, I dunno if she realizes this, but there is a bit of a difference here...

It in fact hasn't happened again because the person approved WAS NOT ONE OF THE 9/11 TERRORISTS! That is unless she thinks his job was to get a job & work inside the tower to convince a few of those from his office everything was fine before the attack...

While there is a bit of a shortfall here, this is far different from one of the dead terrorists getting a visa approval... That is unless Michelle thinks everybody who gets visa approval is/was a terrorist...

For the record I'm pointing out the logistics here... I simply think the comparison the author used is beyond stupid...

Brainwashing 101 :: AcademicBias.com

I knew it was bad, but never really understood how bad...

Watch this video, if you sit all the way though it, you might learn something...

Just a quick Photo Moblog from work...

Judge: Remove Evolution Textbook Stickers

Ahem...

Parents and the American Civil Liberties Union had challenged the stickers [that state evolution is a theory, not a fact] in court, arguing they violated the constitutional separation of church and state.

There is a bit of a hypocritical problem here. The removal of the sticker, which seems to in fact deem the theory of evolution a fact, endorses an anti-religion, which in itself is promoting a type of religion...

Promoting Atheism is no different than promoting Christianity...
Promoting the non-existence of God is no different than promoting God...

I renewed my cell phone contract last Sunday, and went with the Motorola v600 as my phone. I was excited to begin with, as the v600 has some great features. Since then, however I've experienced a couple problems with it, mainly related to using it with my HBH-35 bluetooth headset...

The first issue consists of a problem with answering the phone with the headset... When the phone has been in idle for a long period of time (when I get a call), once the bluetooth headset makes a connection to the phone, it hangs up the call instead of answering it...
The second is a problem with the phone not playing contacts ring tones when the bluetooth headset is connected to the phone. Instead of the phone playing the contacts ring tone, it plays the "alert" tone... This basically means when I'm using my wireless bluetooth headset, I have to take the phone out of my pocket and look at the screen to find out who's calling. Being that the whole idea of a bluetooth headset is to sever any ties to the phone, this is in fact counter intuitive (and beyond stupid)...

The full message I sent to Motorola customer support is below. I will post whatever reply they give me here. For the record, they assigned an issue Id of 050111-000510...

I signed up a new contract last weekend and have since had a couple issues with my v600 and my bluetooth headset.

I needed a phone with bluetooth because I already own a bluetooth headset. I have been using my headset for a number of years with my Sony Ericsson T68i, and have had few problems with it. Since paring it with my v600, however, there have been a couple things that really make it difficult to justify using a bluetooth headset with the phone.

The first is that when my phone sits idle for an extended period of time, it seems to loose it's passive connection with my headset. What this results in is me hitting the answer button on the headset, and then my headset begins to beep while establishing a connection (which is no big deal as the same thing occurred with my SE phone). Then, however, instead of answering the call once it establishes an active bluetooth connection, IT HANGS UP THE CALL! This makes using my bluetooth headset very difficult, and extremely inconvenient... I'm hoping this is a problem that should not be happening...

The second problem I'm having is less serious, but more annoying to me. I have set up a wide array of ring tones on my phone for my different contacts. One of the biggest features I wanted in a new phone is the ability to have polyphonic ring tones that I could clearly identify, so I have no doubt as to who's calling me. I've was extremely excited when I successfully transferred my midi files to the phone and found they sounded great!

My problem comes in, however, in relation to my bluetooth headset. As far as I can tell, when my headset holds a passive or active connection with the phone, the phone no longer plays contacts ring tones, but rather plays the alert sound -- no matter who's calling. This, indeed, seems very counter intuitive, as the whole purpose of using a bluetooth headset is so you can use the phone without being attached to it. When the phone does this, the ONLY method I have of seeing who's calling is to then take the phone out and look at the screen. This makes absolutely no sense, as not only does this defeat the whole purpose of a using bluetooth headset, but also can be very dangerous when trying to answer the phone while driving...

I thought I had read a post somewhere where someone said this was in fact on purpose. I have to believe the post was a mistake (or that I misunderstood it), as completely disabling ring tones when using a bluetooth headset would in fact be completely counter intuitive. The whole purpose of a bluetooth headset is so you can make and receive calls without having to touch the phone. To purposely make it so you have to pull out the phone, and hold it in your hand and look at the screen to see who's calling defeats any reason for having purchased a bluetooth phone in the first place.

This kind of setup is literally be equivalent to the solar powered flashlight, or instant water (which works by simply adding water)... In other words it would be beyond idiotic...

At any rate, I'm hoping you'll be able to tell me that these problems are not something that is supposed to be happening? For the record I'm going to post the full text of this message on my website (www.torgo.org), and other web sites -- along with whatever response you give me... So I hope (for both our sakes) your response will be good news...

I would honestly hate to find out I made a horrible mistake by choosing Motorola over another brand... Not to mention girlfriend would also kill me since I talked her into getting this same phone over another (against her objections)...

Again, I'll post whatever response they give me here...

For thoes of you who are familiar with the move The Day After Tomorrow, you may or may not know that it was based on a book by Art Bell & Whitley Steiber. Art Bell is fairly well known from Coast to Coast AM.

At any rate my post is mainly about the fact that there was yet another tornado in Southern California... This makes 2 in the last few weeks...

More and more crazy weather is continuing on...

I finally got a new cell phone on Saturday... I now have the ability to PhotoBlog on the go... I'm rather excited now, though one thing did disappoint me about the phone...

I ended up going with the Motorola v600... Upon getting home the first thing I tried was to use it with iSync on my Mac... Unfortunately I quickly discovered that iSync currently does not work with the v600...

Apparently it soon may, fortunately...

On a side note, my iBook is currently unusable... On Sunday I tried to plug it in, but found my power adapter would not go into the slot for it... The little tip on it, as it turns out, came off INSIDE the slot... So basically the battery is now dead, and I've no way to charge it... :(

Fortunately, once again, I have an extended warranty... So I will try to bring it to the Apple Store on Tuesday to get it fixed...

Apple sues popular Mac Web site

This is rather interesting...

Apple has filed suit against ThinkSecret.com. Apparently their claiming some of the information they got could only have come from someone who signed a confidentiality agreement...

For those of you who don't know, Apple has a tendency to keep any new hardware/software developments secret, and then releases the info (usually) during a Keynote speech at the MacWorld expo... This practice keeps people like me, and many others, in suspense. It really raises the excitement level, especially right before an expo (which Apple will have on the 11th of January).

There are a handful of Apple related rumor sites out there which "leak" information obtained though various anonymous tips. Some turn out to be total lies, some turn out to be partly true, others hit the nail on the head.

This years expo is likely to be fairly huge, with tons of new hardware & software being released. And as usual, the rumor sites are running abound with some information.

This practice makes a lot of sense, as it leaves so many people eager to see what's coming, which draws more attention than any advertising campaign ever could... However, when rumor sites start giving info on some of these, Apple in turn tries to shut them up... It appears Apple is doing this now...

One thing this suit has done in my eyes, is confirm a lot of what is being said. Prior to me reading the story linked above, I actually hadn't been keeping up with what's coming at the Expo. I actually think these rumor sites do more good than harm for Apple, as since I've visited rumor sites this morning, I'm now extremely excited for the expo... Ironically prior to me reading ThinkSecret, I couldn't even tell you what day the expo was on...

Some things that stuck out in my mind, in case you aren't familiar with any of the rumors:

Headless iMac - An iMac with no monitor, selling for around $500...
iLife '05 - An update to the iLife '04 package, likely selling for around $50...
iWork - An revision to AppleWorks, with may office type functionalities...
Flash iPod - An iPod that uses flash based memory, for a much lower price (and much smaller storage compactly)...
iPhone - A phone made by Motorola, with iTunes built in... This in fact may not be shown at the expo now though, as Moto is afraid a preview will give other cell phone companies a preview and enable them to copy it...

There are more than these, but these are what I'm now waiting for... Without the rumor sites, I would have no anticipation... I would be sitting here not even thinking about next Tuesday and what it would bring...

Welp, I posted about this the other night. As of now, it's getting freezing cold every night here in Southern California... This morning my digital thermometer built into my clock read 62° F... That's pretty cold for around here... Unfortunately my new apartment has electric heaters that have no thermostat... In other words, they manually turn on, and off... So basically I can either leave them on all night, or off...

After reaching $40 on my first electric bill, I'm trying to avoid leaving it on as much as possible...

Normally I'm very tolerant of cold... I wear shorts and a T-Shirt while my girlfr... er, fiance wears pants and a sweatshirt... Granted, she'd be freezing in the desert, but still...

The funny thing is that I'm less tolerant of heat, so six months from now I'm likely to be here complaining that it's way too hot...

I just did a check of my access logs and noticed something interesting...

Within the last 24 hours I've had 5 gigs downloaded off my site... More specifically I've had 4.8 GB downloaded off my site from an IP address that, as far as I can tell, is located in Greece...

The single IP address is "62.38.169.41"... And as much as I can tell, that IP adress litarally downloaded a single file off my site in excess of 1600 times... The downloads mostly occured this morning between the hours of 7 AM and 8 AM Pacific...

I'm left wondering what the purpose could be... I've gotten more hits from that one person than I have total from everybody else this month... I may end up blocking this IP address if I see this happen again... Being my total bandwidth for the month is now at 5.46 GB, I guess I'm really glad I have unlimited bandwidth...

OK, I've once again got more invites for GMail!!!

I've got 6 total, and I'm giving out #1 now...

I have one request when you use the invite: MAKE SURE TO LEAVE A COMMENT HERE SAYING YOU GOT IT!!! You can post anonymously, so just an "I got it" will be fine...

Keep in mind that you are automatically added to my contact list when you take the invite, so I WILL have your email address!!!


I had only one person go without leaving a reply, and I did nothing with him.

This time, however, since I'm giving this out purely as a courtesy, I will take a small action. If you don't post a comment saying you got the invite, I will post your email address here! I figure this way others can email whomever steals the address to see if this person has any available invites...

You can avoid this 100% simply by POSTING HERE THAT THE INVITE WAS TAKEN!!!

I won't post the email address right away, so I will give ample time for you to reply...

And again, you can post here 100% anonymously, you don't have to sign up any accounts to leave a reply, so it's completely private!!!

At any rate, without any further ado, the invite link is:

http://gmail.google.com/gmail/a-91bf400fe8-2f2e17557f-fd81122a61

It's Friggin' Cold!!!

Just a point here...

Muslim extremists say America is evil and anti-Muslim...

America is the single biggest donor to money, supplies, and man power to help the Tsunami victims...

The vast majority of the Tsunami victims were Muslim...

So, needless to say, if America is fighting a war against Muslims, we would be much better off using this as a method to take out many more Muslims rather than trying to help them...

If these extremists truly believe America is evil & anti-Muslim, then their countries should be donating WAY more than us...

Otherwise, they look like hypocritical idiots...

Aid Grows Amid Remarks About President's Absence

This is a little blind sided...

Although U.N. Emergency Relief Coordinator Jan Egeland yesterday withdrew his earlier comment, domestic criticism of Bush continued to rise. Skeptics said the initial aid sums -- as well as Bush's decision at first to remain cloistered on his Texas ranch for the Christmas holiday rather than speak in person about the tragedy -- showed scant appreciation for the magnitude of suffering and for the rescue and rebuilding work facing such nations as Sri Lanka, India, Thailand and Indonesia.

Do the people who are saying this about Bush have any comments on what Kofi Annan's decision to stay at a ski lodge for 3 days after what happened??? At least Bush was in a place he was capable of doing work from...

So, I heard on the radio that several Muslim extremists are saying the Tsunami was Allah's attack against America...

Being that only a handful of Americans were killed, and several buckets full of Muslims were killed, I think they forgot to move the decimal point over while adding up the numbers...

I've a gut feeling that if Allah was trying to strike against America, he could have done it in a manner where fewer Muslims would have been killed...

If in fact they do believe this was an attack caused by Allah, I think they need to look in the mirror a little more closely, because they sure aren't getting the right message...